Claiming FDR’s mantle, Cuomo lays out his 2019 agenda

ALBANY — Gov. Andrew Cuomo laid out his agenda for 2019 on Monday in a speech built around the legacy of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who was sworn into office as governor 90 years ago come New Year's Day.

The speech had the feel of a State of the State address as Cuomo rapidly ran through a list of agenda items without providing much detail. And like a State of the State speech, the summation of those proposals allowed the governor to establish a theme for the coming legislative session.

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In this case, Cuomo's broad theme was about how Roosevelt would act as governor while having “a president who simply doesn’t believe in FDR’s famous Four Freedoms and is affirmatively creating fear and want and stifling freedom of speech and worship.”

And Roosevelt’s response, Cuomo said, would be to stop complaining about the president and start getting things done to offer a counter narrative.

“FDR understood that you cannot spell progressive without progress,” the governor said. “You can’t be a politician who speaks and raises peoples’ hopes and then accomplishes nothing. His national success was not born from pontification or zealotry or hyperbole or symbolism or celebrity or showmanship. FDR was focused on making a real tangible difference in the lives of real hard-working Americans.”

As for what Cuomo plans to do going forward, his address didn’t contain much that was new. Beyond strengthening his long-term goals for moving the state toward renewable energy and saying that Election Day should become a state holiday, nearly every subject the governor mentioned has passed through his lips countless times before. That's perhaps unavoidable in a year in which the Democratic wish list has ballooned and become more feasible because of the incoming change of power in the state Senate.

But the timing of the speech, coming before his new term and the new legislative session begins, will help to define Albany's agenda in the coming months. Cuomo is expected forego a traditional State of the State address next month, choosing instead to merge it with his budget announcement in late January, when the legislative session is well underway. He'll also be delivering an inaugural speech on Jan. 1 — his third — but those speeches rarely are heavy on policy.

Assembly Democrats have repeatedly passed many of the bills that Cuomo discussed on Monday, and their Senate counterparts have said they're going to act on many of them right out of the gate. Had Cuomo waited until his budget address to lay out a specific agenda, it might have seemed that he was following the legislative agenda rather than defining it. — Bill Mahoney

Here’s a closer look at some of the topics he discussed:

Health care

Cuomo said he wants to “codify” the health insurance marketplace that the state created under the Affordable Health Act, should it be overturned by the federal government or courts. Compared to other states’ marketplaces, New York State of Health is relatively strong, but a spokesperson for the governor did not immediately respond when asked how Cuomo plans to replace the premium tax credits and other federal funding that helps residents purchase health insurance should Obamacare be annulled.

Cuomo said he would also push legislation that would maintain the ACA’s protections for people with pre-existing conditions, which became a rallying cry in the midterm elections. The state has had such “community rating” requirements on the books since the 1990s. But without other provisions, like the mandate to buy health insurance included in the ACA, it resulted in New York having some of the highest individual market prices in the country.

He also reiterated his desire for the Legislature to pass the Reproductive Health Act and the Comprehensive Contraception Coverage Act in January and said he will propose his own legislation to legalize recreational marijuana use. He did not outline details of his proposal, nor did he explain how it would differ from an existing proposal that includes criminal justice reforms and ways to promote female and minority entrepreneurship in the new industry. — Nick Niedzwiadek

Education

Cuomo is calling for fairer funding for the state’s schools, but not in the way the state Education Department and major education stakeholders have done. Cuomo said poorer schools have greater needs and should receive more state money than richer schools, but it’s a question of local distribution of aid because the state already spends so much money on education. It’s a reiteration of his funding position last year that resulted in school-by-school budget reporting requirements.

He called the 2007 Foundation Aid formula and the Campaign for Fiscal Equity lawsuit “ghosts of the past and distractions from the present.” That’s in direct opposition to SED and education players who have announced that their budget requests will include a three-year phase-in of more than $4 billion in Foundation Aid starting next year.

“It’s a question of math and theory, not philosophy and political posturing,” he said. — Anna Gronewold

Environment

Cuomo decried the Trump administration’s lack of action on climate change, as he’s done for the past two years. He said the state would embrace a “Green New Deal” without offering details of what that would entail. A federal Green New Deal proposal backed by Rep.-elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez calls for the creation of a commission to detail proposals to get to a zero emissions economy within 10 years while investing funds to create jobs and achieve those goals.

Cuomo said the state’s goal would be to “ultimately” get to zero emissions without offering a deadline, a position he has taken before. He did set a new goal for the electric sector to get to 100 percent renewable by 2040. His current policy calls for 50 percent renewables by 2030 and has faced a variety of challenges.

Cuomo reiterated the state’s plan to regulate contaminants in the absence of action by the federal government. Advocates have been highly critical of the state’s slow pace of action on this front as a statutory deadline for a committee to recommend limits on 1,4-dioxane, PFOA and PFOS has been missed. Cuomo said the state would act “this year” on regulating contaminants. A committee tasked with making those recommendations is set to meet on Tuesday. — Marie J. French

Government reform

Government and election reform was the one area in which Cuomo seemed to branch out more than he has in the past. Most of the topics he talked about have almost become boilerplate in his speeches over the years — early voting, prohibiting outside income, and limiting the amount of money limited liability companies can give, for example.

But Cuomo did mention several ideas that he hasn’t discussed much in the past, such as his plan to make Election Day a state holiday. He also went further than in his past campaign finance proposals and called for a blanket ban on campaign contributions from corporations (which play a relatively minor role in New York’s campaign finance system). He also wants to allow voting by mail, a method that has been praised in states like Colorado and Washington. — Bill Mahoney

Taxes

The governor essentially stuck to the philosophy he’s espoused for years, resisting calls to raise taxes on the state’s highest-earning residents, and making the case that keeping rates steady has actually become more essential due to the recent changes in the federal tax code.

“We must maintain our millionaire’s tax, also make permanent our 2 percent cap on the regressive local property taxes, something FDR fought against for decades,” Cuomo said. “And we must do that because keeping property taxes down is more important now than ever because of SALT.” — Bill Mahoney

Other topics

Cuomo blazed through a long list of previous Democratic priorities he’s backed in years past but seem more likely to pass with the new Senate majority, such as reducing the use of cash bail, increasing the statute of limitations for victims of child sexual abuse under the Child Victims Act, and creating a system of congestion pricing to fund New York City’s subways.

He called for dramatically expanding a section of the state constitution prohibiting discrimination against certain groups.

He lauded the state’s gun control laws (“history has proven us right”) under the SAFE Act, and said that New York should additionally ban bump stocks, extend the waiting period for buying a gun from three to 10 days, and enact the red flag law allowing for police or family members to petition courts to temporarily remove guns from dangerous individuals. — Anna Gronewold